


Pieces of a Whole

by YourLocalPriestess



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Gen, I'm just going with where the inspiration flows man, also may go into pre-me but who knows tbh, not every chapter has a romantic pairing and it is so marked in opening notes, some nsfw and/or violent chapters will occur and they will be so marked in opening notes, will go through all mass effect games in no particular order
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2017-08-24
Packaged: 2018-09-17 04:05:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 3,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9303428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourLocalPriestess/pseuds/YourLocalPriestess
Summary: Everyone knows the stories by now, of Commander Shepard - Survivor of Akuze, Savior of the Citadel, Reaper Detroyer - and a life filled with violence and courage. But few ever knew of the times she enjoyed in the quiet hum of a ship or a raucous party on the Citadel, times spent with the ones she loved the most, times she could stop being Commander and enjoy being Cal.These are the moments in between.





	1. Fabric Starlight

**Author's Note:**

> These are mostly going to spur from the MEFFW FB group and the prompts there. But some might just spur out of me, ya never know. And all will be drabbles, or not much more.
> 
> This Chapter is set post-me3 ending. Prompt was: "Don't make this harder than it has to be."

“Don’t make this any harder than it has to be.”

Shepard glowered at the closed door and then looked back at the mirror to clip the earing in place. The dangling diamond set matched the necklace that hung thin and low into her cleavage. The dress itself was a sleeveless floor length gown that was cut as low in the front as it was in the back and was made of pale blue silk that itself was covered in a sheer lace, diamonds sporadically littered over its surface. Shepard ran her hands over her thighs to smooth the fabric. She didn’t recognize herself. The woman in front of her had surely accomplished finer, more beautiful and luxurious things than fighting whatever bad guy stepped into her radar. She sighed, tucked her hair behind one ear and stepped out.

Garrus turned at the sound of the door and she had the delight of watching his mandibles go slack and jaw drop open. She grinned and felt her cheeks go flush. “Not a word.” She eyed him up and down. She hadn’t had the opportunity to observe turian dress clothes often, but in midnight black and gold accents on his cowl and sleeve cuffs, she had to admit he cleaned up very nicely himself.

“Shepard…” His voice was filled with awe. She rolled her eyes and pointed a finger at him.

“Not. A. _Word_.”

He chuckled and walked over to her. He placed his hands on her arms and took her in more fully before looking at her again with a grin. “Why did you put up such a fight over this?”

“Because it’s a dress. Because it’s the counsel. Because there’s nowhere to strap a pistol to it. The list is endless, Garrus.” She sat on an ottoman and retied one silvery, strappy heel. “Are you ready to go?”

“Yes,” he replied with a chuckle. She fought the urge to punch him.

“Good.” She stood and took the arm he had extended to her. “Then let’s go.”

The grin never left his face as they made their way out of the Citadel apartment. Once in the elevator and descending, he pulled her close and nuzzled her neck.

“You look like you’re wearing starlight.”

Despite herself, she blushed, a small smile breaking across her cheeks and out of his sight line. Thankfully, the doors opened and it suddenly became more pressing to get to the skycar than to respond.


	2. Alchera

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 100 Word Challenge. Prompt: Red. 
> 
> Set at the end of me1. Just Shep in this one.

Red on black.   


She used to think the stars lit up the sky. No matter what planet they landed on, stars filled up the blackness. She couldn’t see stars now. Not with the red blinking inside her helmet and the beeping that filled her skull with every flash. No; red on black, and swirling, turning, spinning, and _can’t get my grip have to get my grip_.   
  
Funny. She remembered learning in some public school that red and hot were synonymous. Glowing red and burning skin. _Not true not true_.   
  
It was cold as the last of her air slipped away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hahahaha haha ha ha..... ha
> 
> I love suffering.


	3. The Importance of Research

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some Shakarian NSFW for you on this fine Sunday ^_^ Set right before the suicide mission. 
> 
> From the MEFFW group prompt: "Maybe it's broken?"

“Maybe it’s broken?”

Shepard looked up at Garrus, who was hovering above her in multiple senses of the word, and deadpanned. “You did _not_ just suggest that my vagina in broken.”

He huffed and glared at her. “Well it’s not exactly what it’s used to.”

“What _it’s_ used to?” Shepard suppressed a chuckle and bit her lower lip to keep from smiling. “Are you saying that your genitalia have a whole separate mindset than you?”

His eyes widened. “What? No, it’s just, you know, different. Not in a bad way, though!”

This time Shepard did chuckle. “Well, he’s not exactly normal to me.”

Now Garrus frowned. “What?”

“It’s got those little,” she waved her hand vaguely to where both their prone forms were inches from connecting, “tentacle thingys at the tip.”

He lifted his mandible in smirk. “Is that a technical term, Commander?”

“Don’t you start commander-ing me now.” She tried her level best to look stern until they both began chuckling at the ridiculousness of the entire situation.

“I should have done more research,” she said with a sigh and a smile, running her fingers through her hair. “I’m sorry if this has been a huge disappointment to you.” She shot an impish smirk up at him. She’d expected the same amused look and was met with a piercing one.

“Cal, do you, um,” he cleared his throat, “do you still want to do this?”

She felt her cheeks flush and nodded once. “Do you?”

He grinned and leaned down to seize her lips in a bruising kiss, his tongue dancing with hers and his talons running up and down her sides before he broke it and leaned his forehead against hers. “I absolutely do.”


	4. Rest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 100 Word Drabble
> 
> Prompt: Awake/Asleep. Ended up being Cal only.

Amazing how suffocation and ice cold darkness had led to best sleep Shepard had gotten in over a decade.

 But it wasn’t sleep. It was death. Death and two years and strangers rebuilding all the broken, burned, frozen,  _dead_ pieces and shoving them back together.

 Death. It was death. _You don’t wake up with shorter hair and unfamiliar scars and firmer tits and less freckles when you sleep. You don’t wake up a terrorist. You’re not supposed to do that when you sleep._

 Sleeping is for rest and death is for rest so what was the difference in the end?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, see, I know this is shit, but I'm posting it anyway. It started as a good idea but Cal left me in the end. Cest la vie.


	5. Finding Purchase

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some Shakarian fluff! Set ME2 :)
> 
> MEFFW 100 Word Drabble Challenge: "There was no stopping it..."

There was no stopping it, really.

There’s a kind of desperation that comes with resurrection, a grappling for something familiar, for some kind of purchase.

She never expected to find that in Garrus, her best friend, someone who had been through so much with her. She didn’t even notice how easily they fell into step, competing for the best shot, lobbing quips in the heat of battle. She couldn’t remember when their looks started to last just a moment too long or when those familiar touches began lingering beyond warmth.

No. It really didn’t surprise her that Garrus was home.


	6. Too Quiet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is actually the start of an au I'm working on for Cal, but *shrugs* here you go.
> 
> From the MEFFW FB group prompt: "It was quiet. Too quiet..."

It was quiet. Too quiet.

Shepard felt consciousness creep into her body with the slowness of syrup making its way through her veins. Her ears filled with the sound of her shallow breaths and a low electrical hum. How had she not heard that before? When was before? Where was before?

It was way too quiet. An experimental flex of her fingers against sheets told her she was in some kind of medical facility. But if that was true, shouldn’t Garrus be there, speaking to someone? She swallowed, or tried to, and became immediately aware of how dry her mouth was. She peeled her tongue from the roof of her mouth and winced as she opened her mouth to speak and felt her lips crack. She flitted the tip of her tongue against them and regretted it immediately as the parched tongue absorbed the tangy, metallic moisture.

It was still so quiet. Why was it so quiet? Did no one notice her here?

She had to open her eyes. That realization was as much a surprise as it was obvious. She felt an unexpected pang of panic and squashed it down. No matter where or when she was or who the fuck was around, she could at least open her eyes to look. She was Commander goddamn Shepard.

Her fists clenched the sheet despite the internal pep talk. She felt anything _but_ Commander Shepard as she lay in the obscene silence.

Okay. Three, two, one –

The room was low-lit, but even so she had to lift her hands to shield her eyes from the fluorescent lights above. She blinked and willed herself into alertness, into focus. Normal pre-fab unit ceiling, probably Alliance. She shuddered out a relieved sigh. Her disused joints protested as she propped herself up on her elbows to take in the room.

She froze. Shadows danced in the corners of the room where light didn’t touch. No, not dancing. Stalking. Shadows were stalking in the corners of her room. They were large and – and – fuck, what were they? They looked almost smokey; as if she could send a good huff their way and they would disappear. But she didn’t do that. She held her breath, frozen, as the creatures, two of them it looked like, stalked back and forth.

Until one elbow gave out from under her. Two sets of coal red eyes met hers. The breath left her lungs and she felt a cold settle over her that left her alone, cold; unable to move under their gaze except for the liquid warmth spreading between their legs.


	7. Rustle, Rap, THUNK

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Air ducts make a lot of noise. Also, Shepard is easily annoyed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Born from the MEFFW Group Prompt: "The sound was coming form the air ducts..."
> 
> Set during ME2

The sound was definitely coming from the air duct.

Shepard had been trying to read her datapads. She had, for once, actually made herself comfortable in her bed with a stack at the night table and fresh cup of coffee in hand. It started out as nothing more than a rustle. She had shrugged it off as her own overactive, newly cybernetified imagination. But the rustling turned to rapping, driving her slowly to madness until a final thunk echoed through her cabin.

She threw the datapad down with a huff. “Alright,” she grumbled, swinging wildly from under the sheets until she made her way out. She marched up her stairs, glaring at the vent all the while, and punched it once, lightly. “Who’s up there?” The only thing the crew had done over the last few days was scan planets for resources. And even if they hadn’t been, she would be hard pressed to believe the Collector’s meant to take her out through the air duct.

Another rustle, growing more distant.                              

“Hey!” she shouted, walking along under the sound. She rapped the vent again for good measure. “Get out here right now!”

Another rustle and then silence. Shepard exhaled through her nose, curled and uncurled her fists. “Fine,” she grumbled, grabbing her visor off the desk. She pulled the grate off and braced her hands on opposite sides. “You fucked with the wrong marine today!” she shouted up, and then she hoisted herself into the duct.

Once settled into place, she turned set her visor to for heat signature and smirked as the residual orange glow of a depleting hot spot met her vision. “Gotcha.”

Commander Shepard would never squirm or shimmy anywhere. It wasn’t graceful, nor was it enjoyable to do in the first place. Cal, on the other hand, was shimmying her ass down the duct like it was nobody’s business. If she were any less infuriated at whoever had forced her hand into being in this position, she might have blushed.

The trail stopped a few feet ahead. Shepard grinned. Times like these she swore victory had a taste. Vengeful pride aside, she worked at pulling away the grate as silently as possible. Once off, she curled her legs over the top and prepared to land right on top of the culprit.

Metaphorically speaking, of course.

She landed with a thud, to see Kasumi staring at her and sipping a drink. In Kasumi’s quarters. She was in Kasumi’s quarters. What the –

“Nice job, Shep.” Her lip quirked in the ever-present smirk.

Shepard was not having it. She folded her arms across her chest and leaned on one hip. “You want to tell me exactly what you were doing in the ducts above my cabin? _Now_?” she emphasized, effectively cutting off whatever excuse the thief had started to say.

She sighed. “Honestly, I don’t know if I should be impressed or embarrassed that you caught me.”

“ _Kasumi_.”

“Okay!” She raised her hands, set her glass down. “It’s just–” She sighed again. “It’s just a touchy subject.”

“My vents aren’t a touchy subject?”

“Fair enough,” she grumbled. “I was – listen, don’t can’t judge me – but I was trying to make it into Thane’s ducts.”

Shepard heard a buzzing in her ear and felt her arms relax of their own free will. “Um, what?”

Kasumi shifted from foot to foot. “I, uh, I like the way he meditates?”

She blinked at the thief, feeling an unwanted grin break across her face. “Kasumi. Do you…have a crush on Thane?”

“Shut up.”

“I cannot believe the ‘master thief’ has become reduced to skulking about in my air ducts for a chance to be a peeping tom.”

“SHUT UP.”

Shepard threw her head back and cackled. She could see the girl’s blush, even under the hood, and even as she crossed her arms and gave a proper pout.

“Not to burst your bubble, hun,” Shepard snickered, “but talking to people usually goes better than stalking.”

“Easy for you to say,” she grumbled back. “He just gives me this _look_ every time I try to coax something out of him.”

“You never know,” Shepard shrugged, thinking of her talk in the battery not long ago, and how it had felt like pulling teeth. “Sometimes men are just clueless.”

She could feel Kasumi rolling her eyes, even if she didn’t see it. “Uh, huh.”

“Listen,” she placed her hand on her shoulder. “What and how you conduct yourself in your down time is your own business, but no more air ducts. For my own sanity.”

Kasumi giggled, and finally gave her the familiar smirk. “Understood, Shep.”


	8. Almost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the MEFFW Drabble Prompt: Almost
> 
> Shakarian here. A snap shot of the starting moments in my in-progress AU.

They ran, and ran, and ran. The heavy thud of boots sprinting over charred dirt was indiscernible from the thud of her heart pounding in her ears. The droning thrum of attack screamed through the air. Others screamed with it. Garrus didn’t. James didn’t. She didn’t. They couldn’t. The beam was ahead.

_Almost there._

She rolled out of the way of the tumbling Mako. Sweat and grime and blood clouded her vision. She scrubbed it away and looked back. They stood frozen, suspended in time, gawking at the metal beast that fell and fell and fell.

“Move!”

He almost did.


	9. Hot and Cold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the MEFFW Prompt: Hesitate
> 
> Margo was Cal's first love, and this is their first kiss. I'm f/f trash when I'm not Shakarian trash. Set on Earth with the Reds.

Heat that couldn’t be blamed on the hearth crawled through Cal’s veins. The other woman took her hand, pulled her closer on the cramped couch.

“So is it all true, the legend of Calamity and her name?” Her voice all softness and curiosity.

Cal huffed, turned to the woman with parted lips. Her face was inches away. Her breath smelled of mint.

“Would it matter?”

Margo shook her head. Her hands pulled them together. Cal leaned into her, before she froze, hovering over the woman’s lips as she remembered why she was here, why she shouldn’t.

She kissed her anyway.


	10. Falling Down, Down, Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shakarian! Set during ME2
> 
> From the MEFFW Prompt: Garrus! Hold on!

The ground beneath her feet rumbled and shook with a newfound violence. The platform grumbled against the attack before an all too familiar grinding sound was followed by a deafening _crunch_ and the whole thing began to tip them into the abyss below. Shepard flung her arms out wildly, grasping for any traction on the metal slabs, and heard Miranda and Garrus doing the same.

As the vibrations stilled, the platform settled at an angle, though stable. Shepard turned to her squad, watching as they began to try to pull themselves up. It was then that one more vibration shook suddenly, and then Garrus was slipping down, down, down, and fast. Shepard watched in gaping shock, frozen in place, until at the last moment he grasped at the edge and clung onto it, the rest of his body dangling over the darkness.

“Garrus! Hold on!”

Her chest felt tight and suddenly the oxygen was thicker than she remembered. She pushed past the panic and sprinted to him, throwing one arm out as the other gripped a displaced wall behind her. Garrus gripped her forearm with a crushing force and she chose to ignore the panic in his eyes. _No, not today. Not on my watch._ Just as she began to pull, Miranda flanked her and pulled his other arm. Both let their biotics flare to life as they grunted with the effort to pull him over the edge, and in a moment, as quick as it happened, he was safe again – lying on the floor and panting in time with them.

Shepard pulled him to his feet after a moment and levelled him with a glare. But it took one look at the guilty glint in his eyes to break her down. She released the tension she was holding and pulled him flush against her.

“Don’t ever do that again, or I’ll push you over the edge myself,” she grumbled, her voice partially muffled by his armor.

He chuckled, arms tightening around her. “I’ll do my best.”


	11. Akuze

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief look at Cal's experience on Akuze.
> 
> From the MEFFW prompt: The high pitched whine was growing in intensity...

The high pitched whine was growing in intensity. The ramshackle steel floor, hastily set up by researchers and marines weeks ago, protested the steady rumble beneath their feet. Shepard watched the floor, unblinking, waiting for the first sign of give. Once she saw that she could get the hell away from that point. Until then she was a sitting duck, cursed to play the waiting game.

Caldwell whimpered a few feet away from her. The private was sitting the same as she, with her back pressed to the wall and hidden behind a collapsed lab table. The girl clutched her assault rifle and whispered a prayer Shepard couldn’t hear.

The rumble became a tremor and Shepard tensed to move. Caldwell cried out as if shot. Shepard whipped around to face her.

“You have to be quiet!” she hissed.

“Dead,” the private sobbed. If she hugged her assault rifle any tighter it would become a permanent fixture to her chest. “They’re all dead…”

“You don’t know that,” Shepard countered. She had been trying for calm. Trying. But even she was having trouble pushing the frayed edges of panic from her voice.

Another tremor. It felt closer now. Shepard swallowed and returned to her watch of the floor, all while scanning the partially collapsed lab for any of her people. For the millionth time.

The trembling stopped. The rumbling stopped. All was still. She could see dust settling on overturned equipment. A dry lump settled in her throat as she felt every muscle in her body coil.

Caldwell did not have the same reaction. She gasped. Her face relaxed and gave in to the most dangerous thing Shepard had seen her marines hold that day: hope.

“It’s gone.” Her voice was small. Almost childlike. She rose one her shaky feet and gave Shepard a watery smile. Her face was streaked with evidence of her tears.

Shepard stayed frozen, eyes widening. The ground hadn’t been still in hours. It didn’t make sense –

“Gone!” Caldwell cried out, raising her gun in glee.

Shepard opened her mouth to speak. Before the sound left her, the beast burst out of the floor beneath the private. Her comrade was silenced in a crushing explosion of blood and flesh.


	12. Someone Else Would Get It Wrong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Shepard watches a dear friend ascend to his death.
> 
> Born from the MEFFW prompt: Mordin Solus

Tuchanka as a whole smelled of vile filth. Nuclear waste, layered with the stench of a world at war, left scars in the earth. In the air. The presence of destruction permeated throughout the destroyed planet.

The ruins were different. The stench was gone. The scars were gone. The only visible mark was time itself. But it all smelled…sterile. Clean. Safe.

Until it wasn’t.

The ruins shook and rumbled and she shouted at Mordin, pleaded for him to come. Mordin. Clean and safe. The good doctor. Even as he ascended into still more destruction, she only saw that lopsided smile.


	13. Fragile Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the MEFFW 100 word challenge prompt: Like glass
> 
> Set during me2.

Lots of things are fragile. Things like tapestries and flowers and babies and glass.

Shepard never thought of herself that way. If anyone asked, “Fragility is not in my vocabulary.”

That wasn’t true now.

“Your body needs time to heal,” Miranda said. “You weren’t ready yet.”

How true that was, she realized, as her hardened nails left a trail of blood on her cheek when she gathered her hair into a loose knot, as she examined the purple-black splotches that tainted her body after battle, as she fought to push back the ache in her chest when she was alone.


	14. Blood and Acid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cal has a lot of survivor guilt.

Vomit smelled like thresher maw acid.

Not really. She knew that, as she leaned back, away from the acrid stench of shame, unable to bring her hand to the device that would destroy the evidence.

But.

But. It reminded her all the same. Blood intermingled with the remains for her haphazard dinner. The result of too many substances and too much _I should be dead I should be dead_. Blood and acid, come back to haunt her. Even if the bite wasn’t the same. Even if it was a weak comparison.

Weakness was no stranger now. She took another drink.


	15. Heartbeat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Death is defined by more than the beating heart.
> 
> From the MEFFW Prompt: Heartbeat

People had a strange way of defining life when it was gone.

Shepard had seen her share of death; messes of blood and limb, unidentifiable. But some bodies lingered, even as the synapses went dim. Marines sent home with tubes and wires and machines infecting their skin; doctors calling it “life.”

_Their heart is beating. They’re still alive._

 How could a person be defined by an organ that was just a fucking pump? A movement of fluid in an empty vessel?

 No one was as cruel as loved ones when the bodies lingered, even if the people died long before.


	16. Control

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Day 14 of the Fanfiction Month Challenge! Prompt: 100 word drabble.

Sex and battle are very similar.

 

The _pound_ , _pound_ , _pound_ of your heartbeat in your ear. The way sweat clings to and covers you. The climactic strike, at just the right moment, that signals victory.

 

The importance of control.

 

Cal has never been good at forfeiting control in bed. It’s too much a battle in itself. A self-contained fight. _How can I conquer you? What’s your weakness?_ A dance of tongues and hands and teeth and touch more deadly than any adversary she ever faced.

 

It’s a game she’s always been good at winning, because the alternative is unbearably vulnerable.


	17. Loving & Losing You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The way Cal fell in love with Finch, and then fell out of it.
> 
> For Fanfiction Month Day 23! Prompt: In Their Youth

Falling in love with Finch was easy.

 

He was kind. He didn’t force her to do anything. He didn’t push her to be anything other than what she wanted to be – with him or in the Reds. When she kept getting better, smarter – when he asked her to help lead them all with him – it made sense.

 

When he asked if he could kiss her – it made sense.

 

Finch was delicate with her, soft even. He was honest and brilliant and when she was with him she thought maybe, just maybe, they could make something out of this shithole life.

~

“These violent delights have violent ends.”

 

Cal stopped loving Finch.

 

She wondered how that was possible, slipping into that emotion and then out of it, without any kind of struggle. Like a light switch had flipped.

 

And maybe it was for him too. Because suddenly it wasn’t about surviving or growing or helping, like it once was. It was about money. It was about power.

 

When she caught him using people, even kids, it was violent. When she finally said “maybe this isn’t working,” it was threats. It was force. It was _terror_ , weaponized and brutal.

 

She hated him.


	18. Burn Me Alive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Garrus decides he's had enough, and nothing Cal does can make her forget.
> 
> Damages!Cal in the aftermath of she and Garrus' fight that ends their friendship. Takes place before the events of Damages. Based on the prompt from the MEFFW group: Up in smoke

“Who _are_ you?”

 

His words echoed in her mind; a violent, unrelenting assault. She swallowed another drink, and another. No amount of burning could alleviate the pressure of his question as it dug its way into in psyche, her very marrow. Could erase the image of him turning his back and walking away.

 

He was right, of course. He always was.

 

Who _was_ she? Hadn’t she once looked at people as priorities instead of nuisances? Hadn’t she once been warm?

 

When had her anger consumed her?

 

All the burning in the world, and she was alone, going up in smoke.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy reading, friend ^_^ *hugs*


End file.
